Google recently introduced Google SketchUp 6 and SketchUp Pro 6 with some significant new features like Photo Match, support for 3D Text and LayOuts.Sketchup 5 shipped with tons of video tutorials (screencasts) that you could download and watch then offline but with SketchUp 6, Google removed the download versions and the tutorials now only available as streaming videos for viewing online.
Since the Sketchup 6 tutorials are streamed in Flash SWF format, streaming recorders like WM Recorder or Replay A/V may not be able to download them to your hard-disk.
Watching streaming tutorials especially on a slow dial-up connection may not be a very good experience so here's a very simple technique to download Sketchup videos locally.
1. The SketchUp 6 videos are available on this page. Open it any web browser and view the HTML source code.
2. You will see filenames like V6_PhotoMatch_1.swf, V6_Styles.swf, etc. These correspond to the various tutorials that you see in step 1. Below the filenames, you'll see a "path variable" that shows the location of the web server where these tutorials are located.
// path to where videos are hosted (with trailing slash)
var path = "http://download.sketchup.com/videos/gsu6videos/";
3. Just create the full path of the file by appending the file name to the above path (like http://download.sketchup.com/videos/gsu6videos/V6_Text.swf) and paste this in your download manager.
4. Now the real trick - Once you have downloaded the tutorials in SWF format, rename these files to .FLV and play them inside any the free Riva or FLV Player.
Alternatively, you may also find the cached tutorial files in your browsers temp folder. These Sketchup videos are not hosted on Google Video, they are just using the Google Video Flash Player skin.
You should also checkout Go-2-School.com - they have produced an excellent series of video tutorials on Google Sketchup. The Go 2 School founders frequently appear on MacBreak TV as well.